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but not for long...planned for the following days:a surfing excursiona family barbecuedinner with good friendsan overnight with friends to the east for more surfing.

The mountains were lovely, the river was cool and refreshing and Youngest had a wonderful time with his cousins and their friends.K's sister set up a large, soap covered tarp on a hillside and the kids slid down it screaming with delight.

She's a brilliant improvisational cook (a skill I envy) and had wonderful meals for us.The house is very groovy too -

The cousins had a fabulous time rafting...

But last night, K experienced a problem that he's had before - he had a spasm in his esophagus which makes it impossible for him to swallow. Usually a bite of food lodges itself deep in his chest and he is in pain and can't do anything to help it pass lower. Or higher.Usually he can walk it off, but the last couple of times it has happened he has been very uncomfortable and last night the attack lasted two hours.He refused for a while, but I eventually got him in the car and we set off on dark mountain roads with hastily scrawled directions to the hospital.Of course we got very lost.K convinced me to stop at the police department for directions.Of course they called an ambulance, which he didn't really need - or maybe he did, I could no longer tell.They settled him in and with me ready to follow them at 80 miles an hour, they started off: at 25 miles per hour.Frustrating.

He got excellent care. They gave him an intravenous dose of glucagone as we waited amid felons, dog bite, and knife-fight victims, and must follow up with a GI doctor now that we are home.He is supposed to be on a liquid diet (he had a well chewed turkey burger for lunch) and clear fluids.So.The pinot is open.

And we had a sign in the dining room that said: 30 days without an emergency room visit.Damn it.

Glad it was fun before the frenzy. I love that if I go away from the computer for a few days I always have a couple of your posts to read when I get back.

Hope all is well and that you have put up a new sign in the dining room. Perhaps you need those numbers on pegs to facilitate the changing date?

Foodie note--The preview for "No Reservations" or whatever they're calling the new Catherine Zata-Jones flick rang a bll and I rented the original German "Mostly Martha" which was nice. Worth a watch with some wine.

Hey BB--you know I have the same esophagus thingie--the last time I ended up in the ER, the surfer-dude doctor came in and said, "I know this is going to sound totally crazy, but I'm going to give you nitroglycerin and then you're going to take a big gulp of Sprite while jumping up and down."

Sure enough, I puked all over him, but my blockage was gone. Now I have to have my esophagus roto-rootered once a year or so, as it is freakishly narrow and lacks "motility."

The patient develops symptoms immediately after swallowing a large mouthful, usually of inadequately chewed meat, the result of intoxication, wearing dentures or being too embarrassed to spit out a large piece of gristle. The patient often develops substernal chest pain that may mimic the pain of a myocardial infarction. This discomfort though, increases with swallowing, is followed by retained salivary secretions which, unlike infarction, leads to drooling. The patient usually arrives with a receptacle under his mouth into which he is repeatedly spitting. At times these secretions will cause paroxysms of coughing, gagging, or choking.

ew.

So I ask, is the drunkard too embarrassed to admit he has an affinity for gristle?

Last New Years Day (no, we weren't and hadn't celebrated) I was dressing in our bedroom, when I tried to take a regular normal breath--and I couldn't. And I couldn't the next try either. No breathing, just a bit of air to keep me going, but not for long.

Husband drove like the wind through the ravines of our lake to the ER which is not attached to a hospital, and I was getting only enough air to stay conscious.

The last thought I remember having was: this is the little place I'm going to die in. And then all went gray and black until one of those dear people who worked in that rural "dump" gave me a shot of epi while another did something else and another gave me something so painful but it checked oxygen level in the blood--and damn, I'll tell you, those doctors and nurses couldn't have been better if I'd been at Mayo.

Later the guy who turned out to be my pulmonologist showed me a chart marking my "progress" when I entered the ER. It went up (blood oxygen ratio) and then plummeted. He said one more level lower than that, and I'd be alive, but brain damaged.

I stayed there for 12 days. There were no other long term patients.But that crew of doctors and nurses saved my life, and nobody could have done any better.

You can't just an ER by its bricks and morter, I found out. It might not be Cedars Sinai, but inside you just might find the best and the brightest of the best and the brightest practising state of the art medicine.

You're very lucky to have family and friends that live in such a nice area to visit. Glad K is okay! I have a friend who has that problem as well. Only found that out the first time he came for dinner and I made Roast Beef. If I had known I'd certainly had made something a lot softer.

Well... we're off today on our vacation. See you when we return :)Hugs